There’s a good chance this summer will be more active than usual for the Predators, who are tumbling toward the end of a miserable season.

Coach Barry Trotz characterized the offseason as potentially “very busy” as the team looks to “fill holes” in a roster that underperformed.

With four games to play, the Predators know they will miss the playoffs for only the second time in nine seasons and finish under .500 for the first time in 10 seasons. Yet the leader of the team’s ownership group said alterations would not be sweeping in scope.

“It doesn’t call for, in my view, a wholesale change and we’re going to clean house and start over. We’re not doing that,” Predators Chairman Tom Cigarran said on Wednesday in an interview with The Tennessean. “We have to get our players, who are really good players, healthy and playing again. We need to get some of our young kids to continue to develop.”

Predators Chief Executive Officer Jeff Cogen described the season as a “pothole, but the road is still paved,” while players expressed hope that some tweaks can get Nashville back into Stanley Cup contention in 2013-14.

“Obviously we didn’t have what it took to make the playoffs,” captain Shea Weber said. “That’s obviously up to the management, and they’ve done a great job in the past in drafting and bringing guys in here, and I’m sure they’re going to continue to do that. They’ll focus on that … and all we can do is keep improving and trying to be better next year.”

The Predators (15-21-8) were eliminated from the playoff race with last Monday’s loss to Vancouver — Nashville’s seventh straight defeat. Cigarran said injuries are the primary reason the team failed to live up to expectations after marching into the second round of the playoffs last season.

Yet even before the injuries mounted — forwards Colin Wilson, Paul Gaustad, Patric Hornqvist, Gabriel Bourque and Mike Fisher are out of the lineup — the offense often was ranked among the bottom 10 in the NHL. The Predators also never figured out a way to account for the absence of all-star defenseman Ryan Suter, who signed with Minnesota.

Cigarran praised the coaching staff and said he thought the squad that general manager David Poile assembled was going to be “the best team we ever had — we still believe it, except they’re all injured.”

“If we had one or two injuries instead of seven or eight, if they were out for a typical three games instead of three months, we would have had a very different result,” he said. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”